


The Return (Hermitbrine 2, Hermits brine harder)

by SyconSenti



Series: Hermitbrine AU [6]
Category: Hermitbrine au - Fandom, Hermitcraft RPF, Minecraft (Video Game), SciCraft
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Basically Ex is not in a good state, Gen, Panic Attacks, Self-Doubt, Starvation, cw: notch
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-08
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-18 14:09:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 21,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28619322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SyconSenti/pseuds/SyconSenti
Summary: An unwelcome visitor has learnt of Herobrine's new life on the Hermitcraft Server. Now everything is going downhill.
Series: Hermitbrine AU [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2097114
Comments: 164
Kudos: 164





	1. Notch joined the game

**Author's Note:**

> Updates here will definitely be slower than Hermitbrine 1, but here we are! The long awaited sequel! I'm not struggling to write at all!

**Notch has joined the game**

Herobrine's heart stopped. He was no longer in his base, instead he was standing in the spawn point below where the spawn island used to be, staring into the black soulless eyes of one who never should return. They floated just off the floor, with a hand clasped at the fabric of his shirt, lifting him from the ground. 

"Hello."

Herobrine squeezed the bee in his arms tighter to try and stop the terrified trembling that had overtaken him. His breathing had quickened however, and he began to feel light headed from the panic that had set in.

_ Why is he here why is he here WHY IS HE HERE WHYISHEHEREWHYISHEHERE- _

"Hello there, strange non whitelisted visitor! What brings you traipsing into our server?"

Never before had Herobrine been more relieved to hear the calm tone of the admin. Xisuma appeared to have teleported himself over, as he definitely did not drop in from above or appear through a nether portal. An unregistered person being present was indeed a worry enough for him to disregard his adminy code of honour. Even more so if it happened to be the  _ creator of everything. Including him. _

"You got a bug." Notch's voice was monotone, and he did not release his glare from Herobrine for a single moment. "I intend to fix it."

"I appreciate the offer, but surely it would be better to leave such a feat to the devs?" Xisuma suggested. Notch slowly turned his stare to rest on X, obviously not amused.

"No." 

Glitchiness formed around his other hand, which manifested into a stick that shined with enchanted magic. Xisuma's eyes went wide, and he lunged forward to tear the stick from Notch's grasp. However, Notch had the speed advantage, and X was quickly pinned down. At that, Herobrine shook off the fear that had petrified him, set the bee down gently, then leapt at Notch to free Xisuma from his grip.

To his surprise, he found he could break the two apart with relative ease. Notch was sent stumbling backwards, however his ability to ignore gravity let him right himself quickly. Xisuma on the other hand clattered heavily to the floor. He exhaled a pained breath, then instantly went to log in to the admin console. Herobrine stood between the two, glaring Notch down while ignoring the shivering that was running through every limb. Beneath the terror he was brimming with, a hot fire of anger was burning at the man standing before him. 

This person, Notch, who had created him solely to be a puppet. Who had tried over and over to rip him from existence. He was the original Herobrine hunter, and he'd passed his own habits onto those who had succeeded him while they never knew what damage it caused. Even after he'd vanished, his presence loomed over him as a dark shadow that haunted his subconscious mind. 

It had been fading, slowly. Especially since the Hermits had taken him under their wing. But now, Notch had appeared once again, determined to tear down any scrap of happiness that Herobrine may experience. 

Why can't he just be allowed to exist?

"HEROBRINE WATCH OUT!"

The unexpected and rarely heard shout of Xisuma snapped Herobrine out of his mind. Notch was right in front of him, bringing the stick down so it would stab straight into the vulnerable skin of his neck. Then Xisuma was in front of him, shoving him out of the way. The stick pierced into the muscle of his arm, sending a wave of glitch shuddering through his entire body. At the same moment, Notch vanished into thin air. 

**Notch has left the game**

**Notch has been banned from the server**

For a moment, nothing moved. Then Xisuma went limp and sank to the floor. Herobrine gasped and knelt down before him, his eyes locked in the stick that was impaled through the Admin's arm. A line of blood was beginning to run down from the wound, soaking into his glove and igniting a small spark of panic within him. What should he do? Should he pull it out? Wait no, it would bleed more if he did that. But it can't heal without the stick being removed. He was no medical professional though; much of the first aid he would perform on himself would be deadly to anyone else. Maybe he should call the others for help. In fact, he should definitely do th-

With a grunt, Xisuma suddenly gripped at the stick and tugged. Herobrine gulped and grabbed forward to stop him from completing the action, however a wave of glitch shot through the admin, which made him drop his hand again.

"Xisuma?" 

X did not reply, the only sound being his laboured breathing. It sounded like it was getting rougher by the second, and soon X was clawing at his helmet, trying to pull it off. At that, Herobrine gripped the latch and unhooked it, before yanking the helmet off the Admin's head. X inhaled a huge breath of the air, then began coughing.

_ Wait, X needs his helmet to breathe, what am I doing- _

Herobrine began to push the helmet back on, but X raised his hand, making him pause.

"No. No helmet. It's fine."

"But you-"

"It was suffocating me."

"Huh?"

With one final cough, X looked at Herobrine and smiled.

"X… don't you need it to breathe?" Herobrine questioned.

"Yes."

"How was it suffocating?"

"I couldn't breathe." The two sat in silence for a short while, only for the situation to finally dawn on Xisuma.

"Wait, I can breathe without my helmet?" 

As if to test it, the admin inhaled several large lungfuls of unfiltered air, and waited for the over-oxygenated dizziness to set in. However, it never came.

"What's going on?" Herobrine asked nervously. X shrugged and pulled the communicator over to re-access the admin console. Herobrine watched him tap on the screen a bit, then freeze and start tapping again with more desperation.

"Oh no."

The device slipped from his hand, clattering to the floor. Herobrine peeked over Xisuma’s shoulder to read the text on the screen.

**_You do not have permission to run this command._ **

“...X?”

The Admin sank to his knees, staring at the device on the floor.

“I’m not an admin anymore.” He whispered. Herobrine’s blood went cold. He slowly sat down next to X, who appeared to be beginning to breathe heavier. He sat there for a while, frozen in place and unsure what to do, before shaking himself out of paralysis and getting to his feet.

The bee that had been set aside earlier was retrieved and gently pushed into Xisuma’s arms, who proceeded to embrace it tightly and bury his face into it’s soft fuzz. Herobrine then sat back down, unsure of what to do next. However his presence did seem to be grounding for X, so he remained there until the now ex-admin calmed down slightly.

Eventually Xisuma shifted from his tightly curled position.

"Thank you for staying, my friend." His voice was quiet and choked. Herobrine nodded in response with a small smile.

"So…" He started saying, not entirely sure that he knew what he was going to actually say. 

"I'm going to call a meeting in a moment. But first, need to get the stick out."

Herobrine blinked, and X indicated to the enchanted stick that was still impaled through his arm. 

"I can't seem to hold it safely now I'm not opp'd… can you?" He asked. Herobrine gripped the stick, and instantly pain shot through his body, similar to the pain from getting removed. However he held strong and tugged backwards on the stick. It slipped out of the wound, making Xisuma cry out in pain. 

"S-sorry!" 

\--

Herobrine felt the gaze of twenty something hermits boring into him as he tightly wrapped the wound on Xisuma's arm. They started arriving almost the moment he sent out the message, some of them even teleporting their way to spawn through dying. Apparently the sudden appearance of Notch had freaked out everyone, and they wanted to know just what had happened. Arriving to a scene of a hurt and helmetless admin as well as Notch's supposed brother did not help ease the tensions in the slightest either.

"So, uhm, you may have noticed we had a little visitor recently?" X started with an awkward throat clearing. 

"Yeah… Notch visited? I thought Notch was gone!" Etho answered, sounding slightly panicked.

"I  _ hoped _ Notch was gone." Iskall grumbled quietly from behind him. 

"What was he doing here?" False asked. Xisuma sighed.

"I guess the… animosity between Herobrine here and his… "brother" is still rather strong." He stated. Herobrine dropped his gaze to the floor.

"So Herobrine brought him here?" Beef suggested, regarding him with suspicion.

"He came by himself… I didn't want him to come here…" Herobrine mumbled, not looking at the crowd. 

"How can we be sure of that?" Beef continued. "I don't see how Notch could come here any other way?"

"No way, Beef. He would not do that." False cut in.

"Really?"

"Yes really." Xisuma said. "I saw how Notch treated him. Herobrine did not "invite" Notch."

"It's more chasing him here." Xb added. "That might present problems…"

"I… I just wanna live, man!" Herobrine half whispered. X shook his head.

"Look, Herobrine is not to blame here, and either way Notch is banned. That isn't the reason I called you." 

The Hermits gathered around slightly closer, making Herobrine feel even more claustrophobic than he already felt.

"What's the issue, X?" False asked nervously.

"I… Notch took my Admin status. The Server has no admin."


	2. The Plan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nobody likes this plan.

"WHAT?"

The outburst of cries made Herobrine's ears ring. He grunted and covered them until the noise died down.

"Yeah… I don't know what it is, but somehow being stabbed with a debug stick isn't too good for you." Xisuma nodded to the bloodied stick laying on the floor a few meters away from him. The closest hermit, Jevin, crouched down to grab it, only for his form to glitch and collapse into a heap when he made contact.

"Oh no, you okay?" Hypno asked almost immediately afterwards. He and two others dropped down beside him, while Doc was inspecting the stick closely. He prodded at it with a finger.

"Doc, don't-"

"Seems fine to me" The cyborg stated, holding the stick in his hand. He then swapped the stick to his other hand while announcing "I can do a few tests on this thing if you wWAAARGH GOD-"

The stick was tossed to the floor, and the crowd parted away from it, no one wanting to experience the effects of such a thing on their bodies. For a while all was silent, no one knowing what to say about the situation. Then Grian stepped forward and asked:

"So… what does this mean?"

X sighed, suddenly looking very tired.

"It means that the server stability will slowly degrade without me maintaining it. Every morning I go and fix the small errors that occur over the course of the day. They really are small. A misaligned bit of grass, some leaves lagging in decay, little things like that. But they don't fix themselves. Over time all the tiny problems will begin to build up on the system, and it'll start overloading trying to keep track of all the glitches." He sighed and looked down.

"The glitches will become more noticeable. Non flowing water and missing chunks. Eventually some may become corrupted. And finally… the system will crash. Go offline." X's eyes turned to rest on Doc and Jevin.

"The first ones to be affected will be the non human hermits. You'll lose your ability to respawn." 

Jevin shifted uncomfortably from his position of bundled inside of Hypno's overcoat. Doc swallowed nervously.

"And then the rest will be taken off soon after."

"Great. So we're doomed." Tango concluded.

"Not necessarily. Tango, I have made you admin before for some tasks right? Can you still access the console?" X asked. Tango shook his head.

"Took myself off the admin list afterwards."

"Oh jeez, Cub? Joe? Either of you?" The ex-admin's voice was taking on a tone of desperation.

"I also followed in the path of the gentleman's rule and stripped myself of admin powers after the task was finished." Joe replied.

"No admin here." Cub added.

"Welp. We're screwed."

The atmosphere of the room was beginning to fill with a rising sense of panic, which was definitely not helping Herobrine’s mood any. He was already feeling terrible that his presence had once again put everyone’s lives in danger.

“Would be a good time to still have that command block Flynn had ay?” Came a voice from beside him. Herobrine started and looked around to see who was there.

“Oh. Diana!”

“Sup dad.” Diana grinned mischievously. “Sorry about the… uh… family issues. I can already see you blaming yourself and just want to say no it is not your fault that Notch happens to be a dick.”

“I… Thank you…” Herobrine smiled slightly. He took hold of the bee and handed it to Diana, who giggled at the sight of it.

"I've seen these lil guys around! They're so cute!"

"This is Barnabee." Herobrine said. Diana hugged the bee close.

"Hi Barnabee!" She grinned, brushing her cheek against it's fuzz. Barnabee buzzed quietly in response. 

In the bubble of happiness created by an insect of the Bombus variety, the meeting was all but forgotten. The rest of the hermits, however, were very much engrossed in the situation at hand.

"So what are we going to do X? Will we have to start a new server?" False asked worriedly. The rest of the hermits looked amongst one another, none of them seeming partial to the idea of their home being started anew.

"If we need to, it is a last resort. We stand to lose too much to completely wipe everything unless we have no other choice. This system has been run and updated and added to for so many years now. In a way it would be like shutting down a part of myself." Xisuma sighed, the despair on his face plain to see without a helmet to cover it. "I think… there is one way I can be restored though. One person with limited admin abilities. There's two problems though. One: I don't think anyone here will like the idea, and two: I might have banned him last season."

The room was silent for a moment. Then Zedaph asked "Are you talking about Evil Xisuma?"

"...Yes."

You could cut through the thick silence with a knife.

"Xisuma. How do you think… Evil Xisuma can help? He's evil!" False exclaimed. Xisuma closed his eyes and sighed.

"I knew this would be the response. Evil X is basically a clone of my profile. This means he's going to have a limited ability to access the admin console should he be given the tools to do so. So he will be able to reinstate me as admin."

"Will he want to though? X, you do know that your evil clone has tried to destroy the server on multiple occasions right? Heck, you were the one fixing it all?" Tango looked rather concerned at the idea. X grimaced.

"It's either trust EX or be forced to create a new server. I don't like this either, but it's the best idea I have. No, the only idea, in fact."

"Okay, disregarding the fact that you're saying bring the guy that tried to destroy the server several times in the past back and trust him to not do it again, might I ask, how? How can we go get this man? You said you banned him, and to unban him we need an admin. Which is precisely what we don't have at the moment." Cub asked.

"Well, when moving to the new season, the banlist got wiped. And for some reason I never restored it. Somehow my negligence may have actually saved us, since Evil X is technically not banned right now." Xisuma chuckled. "Who would have thought!"

Cuban raised an eyebrow.

"Fair enough. He's still not here though. Where is he? How can we get him here? The server still exists and works to keep those not whitelisted out."

"It's not an impenetrable barrier though. I mean…" Xisuma turned and presented Herobrine to the crowd, who looked over from where he and Diana were playing with the bee.

"Ex mentioned once that Herobrine has gotten him into the server before. Do you remember anything like this, Hero?"

Herobrine frowned, thinking back into his long library of memories.

"Kind of. Like, red Xisuma? Ffffffake… voice?" He answered. X nodded.

"Sounds like him. Any memory of how it happened?"

"Well… we met… he ask me a favour… and since… w-well… alone… me alone… I agreed. I kinda just… just held h-his hand… walk through… ja? Then… then he ran away… sad me..." 

"Okay…?" Xisuma scratched his beard and frowned. "So borders just don't exist for you?"

"If they do… I don't notice them…" he dipped his head. "Sorry."

"I remember a short while before you guys met him, we actually got stuck at your worldborder." Diana suddenly explained. "I couldn't see from where I was but I did hear Flynn cussing like crazy about him escaping through it. So yeah I can vouch for that."

"Huh, but you all still got in?" Jevin asked.

"Well, yeah. Flynn had that command block, he made a portal inside. It just took long enough that Hero could get away, thank goodness."

"Ah, so that settles that." Xisuma pondered.

"Do you know where this evil ecksooma is though?" Diana asked. X tapped his cheek as he thought for a while, then grumbled quietly.

"Would have gone… home. And… it's in the name. Xisumavoid…" 

"Oh, great, so he's locked behind bedrock which cannot be broken. And we can't go into the void!?"

"We can break bedrock though? It's a process but it's possible." Impulse objected. "I made a whole business out of it." 

Diana blinked, looking like she just had her reality shattered.

"Ah."

"And… I can go… can go in void…"

Everyone looked at Herobrine, who instantly withdrew his face behind the bee slightly.

"Well, that solves everything!" Jevin grinned. "Herobrine can go find Evil X, bring him back, everything is fixed!"

Herobrine buried his face in the bee, regretting opening his mouth.

"Helvete…"

\--

"I still don't see why we couldn't just use the bumless pit." Zedaph complained, sitting with his arms crossed in a pout. 

"We don't know how Evil Xisuma will react to being back in the server. In a worst case scenario he will cause some serious damage. It's too risky." X explained. Tango hopped out of a deep hole that was currently in the process of being dug, clutching a few sticks of tnt. 

"All is ready to blow! Brace yourselves!" He called, lighting a fuse and skittering away from the opening. Moments later, explosion after explosion shook the ground, spraying debris out of the hole all over the place. 

After the dust cleared, the small group of void prospectors began to climb down, eventually reaching the rough pitted surface of the bedrock. Herobrine quickly went to plug any lava holes that leaked in while the rest looked around for the thinnest area of bedrock they could find. 

"So, ready for this? Got everything?" Diana asked. Herobrine looked down at the bag he was holding that was stuffed with supplies.

"They… ja. I… I really don't need… but they not letting me g-go without it…" He stammered.

"Aww. I'm sure you will do great, Hero! Ooh, you breaking the bedrock now?" Diana skipped away, leaving Herobrine in his usual nervous state alone. He watched the unwieldy process of Impulse breaking down the jagged bedrock bit by bit, his dread growing the closer they got to the vast emptiness below. Time passed, with the group slowly disappearing into the growing hole. At some point Zedaph had sat down beside him, and was often sneaking small snacks like cookies and apples into Herobrine's already overstuffed bag. Herobrine pretended not to notice him, despite how bad of a job Zedaph was doing at hiding the deed. 

Finally, Tango emerged from the hole and waved at him.

"Hey Hero! Door's open." 

Herobrine gulped nervously and picked his way down into the hole. Sure enough, a gap in the very bottom revealed an endless blackness below, with Diana crouched near the edge peering in while Xisuma was holding onto the back of her shirt.

"I wish you all the luck my friend. Remember the coordinates, and keep plenty of rockets on hand to get back. Stay safe, and remember, if it gets too much for you, turn back any time." He smiled warmly at Herobrine and pulled Diana away from the hole before going forward and opening his arms. Herobrine instantly stepped into the embrace, letting the safety of the position seep into him. Then he pulled away and gazed down into the hole.

"You ready?" Impulse asked. Herobrine nodded, then without further hesitation, jumped in.


	3. Descent down into the deep darkness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He is falling.

* * *

The air whistling past Herobrine stung at his eyes, forcing them closed. Not like there was anything to see anyway. The point of light above quickly vanished, either from distance or thick void fog it was impossible to tell. The air rushing over his elytra was getting thicker by the second, and he could feel the pressure beginning to weigh down on every inch of his body. 

Soon Herobrine stopped his glide and simply let himself drop into a free fall, stowing the elytra away so as to not risk any damage to it. By now the resistance from the soupy atmosphere should have been slowing his descent, but instead it felt like he was falling faster. Despite this, he cracked his eyes back open once again. Still nothing around, of course. The void wasn't called as such for nothing. Well… in fact, it was exactly called that for nothing. There was nothing.

The pressure was bearing down on him hard, the air rhythmically beating against his eardrums as he dropped like a great heartbeat, as if the void itself was alive. He could pick out thick particles in the air now, condensing against one another. A loud crack sounded behind him, making Herobrine spin around to see what it was.

Nothing.

He took out his communicator and squinted at the screen, trying to pick out the coordinates. However something was interfering with his vision, and he ultimately stashed the device away without knowing just where he was. 

A strange whisper sounded out in the dark, once again making Herobrine twist around to see what it was. He thought he saw an odd shape fly through the blackness, but put it down to a hallucination. The nothingness was already messing with his brain it seemed.

Then, suddenly, it was like he'd broken through a barrier. His falling slowed, then stopped entirely. He was bobbing on something, not quite air, not quite liquid. Herobrine closed his eyes and sighed, already tired from the drop, wishing he could rest for a while. However time was of the essence, and instead he cast his senses out to see if he could find anything.

Nothing.

So… now what?

He set off in a random direction, wading and stumbling through the thick void, straining his senses to pick out something, anything that might be around. 

Soon he noticed flecks of some sort of heat were rising from below. Herobrine assumed that under even the thick fog of the void, the nether was situated, and these particles were simply from there. It at least gave his eyes something to focus on, as well as a small amount of warmth to combat the bitter cold. At some point he had taken a thick coat that Grian had made for him out of his bag to protect him, but the air pressure made the fabric cling so tightly to his body that he was forced to take it off lest it impede his movement. 

More cold, more black, nothing else.

Several times he dove into the bag, mainly to grab a snack to silence his stomach every time it made itself known. Once to check the coordinates on his communicator. The y value was so long that it overflowed into the z, making it impossible to read with his fuzzy vision. The rest of the occasions were when Herobrine stumbled across the odd scrap of debris that must have come from above. 

Sensing the tiny points of interest was easy in the vast nothingness that surrounded them. Herobrine came to look forward to the rare events, since it wasn't like he had much else to do. His finds were often rather unusual, and he wasn't quite sure what many of them were. So far he'd found 3 diamonds, making him wonder if the sky was just made of them or something. Then there was a smooth pebble of bedrock (what on earth broke that off?), Some stones he couldn't identify, scraps of… plants? that were a deep cyan in colour, and finally an odd tendril of the same colour that seemed to glow very slightly when he held it. 

Overall an odd assortment, but to someone with nothing better to do, they may as well be the greatest games ever made. Herobrine found himself weaving the tendril and plant scraps together often, his hands either making intricate patterns or a total mess. Each new scrap of the world above was added to his collection, and often incorporated into the next grand design of a disaster he would make after untangling the last one. It was something to do, to take his mind off of the crushing reality of his situation.

And crushing it was. The sheer weight pressing down on his body from all sides was slowly taking its toll on Herobrine. Bruising had begun to spread from the weaker parts of his body outwards, making movement more and more painful as the untrackable flow of time dragged on. His muscles were tired, a deep weariness that had sunk deep into his very bones. 

Herobrine needed to rest. He did not want to, but eventually his battered body did not give him a choice in the matter.

\--

Xisuma paced back and forth around the hole, too many worried thoughts on his mind to even attempt going back to his usual routine. Herobrine could return any moment, and he wanted to be there when it happened, evil twin in tow or no. If Evil X was there, he'd have to be ready to deal with him. If not… well he'd be there to support Herobrine. His own memories of his birth in the void were fuzzy and long faded, but he knew that the location was not a fun place to be in.

His communicator buzzed, and he took it out to see what errors the Hermits had reported this time.

**< Grian > Xisuma> more ghost blocks at the mansion. right side hole under the pathway**

**< Grian > Xisuma> theres a spider stuck in one of them **

**< Xisuma > Grian> noted**

The glitch was written into his ever expanding list of issues that needed looking at once X got his admin rights back. He'd asked the Hermits to notify him of any issues they found so he could reach them as soon as he could without risking crashing the system by accessing overloading logs. 

With a sigh, he turned around and began to pace back, only to trip over something that was not there. X stumbled back to his feet, then turned around and poked at the space with his boot. There was something there, but he couldn't see it. A dropped item layer told him that yep,this was yet another ghost block. He grumbled to himself and noted it down.

A strange sound suddenly caught his attention, something that seemed like a mix between a warble and a crackle. Xisuma froze, then turned towards the source, wondering just what odd prank a Hermit decided to pull this time. However, there were no Hermits in sight. Instead, a strange black shape with a deep cyan appendage growing out of it was poking out of the hole in the bedrock. As he watched, the cyan faded into a deep blue black until it was the same colour as the rest of it.

"Oh hello? What are you?" At the sound of his voice, the appendage began to glow again, emitting the same strange noise as before. The thing clicked slightly and rose higher out of the hole, exposing two long limbs tipped with a claw. Some sort of membrane seemed to stretch between the limbs and the creature's body, making it appear larger than it actually was - which was about the size of a chicken.

Xisuma chuckled and crouched down at the hole, watching as it twitched around trying to figure out its surroundings. At the sound of his approach, the creature suddenly darted away, vanishing into the blackness. 

"Oh jeez, sorry!" He exclaimed. "Didn't mean to scare ya!" After a while, nothing below moved, making X risk leaning into the hole to take a better look. 

All of a sudden it was back, its claws clinging into Xisuma's armour. X gasped as the sudden weight pulled him off balance, and with a rush of chilling horror he found himself surrounded on all sides except above by darkness. Already the air was pressing down on all sides of him. Luckily, X still had his elytra on, so he quickly tore the wings open and tugged a firework out of his pocket. The force sent him whizzing back towards the hole above, and he burst out of it, quickly deciding in that moment to perhaps go home and take a break. One close call with the void was enough for today.

It was at that moment that Xisuma noticed that there was still a weight clinging to him. He peered down to see the blank face of the void creature that had pulled him in in the first place. It was flattened against his chest, the head tendril pulled in tight against its skull. No doubt the sudden rush of new… sounds? was overwhelming the poor thing. 

Xisuma slowly glided down to the ground, landing just outside of Keralis's farmhouse. He slowly wrapped his arms around the creature, and began to pet it's back as he made his way over to the front door. He knew that Keralis was having a slightly rough day today, and he was taking the day off at his farm with Xb and Beef. Sure enough, the trio and Wels were sat around the kitchen table, playing some sort of card game. All four turned to look at him as he came in, and the quiet chatter stopped dead as all eyes locked onto the bundle of black that was clinging to Xisuma's chestplate.

"Uhm… X…?" Wels asked.

"Shishwhammy? What is your new friend?"

"Hello everyone! This is… uhm… this is Fred!" Xisuma beamed at the room of very confused men, then went over and sat in an empty chair. "Actual answer is I don't know. It came out of the void as far as I can tell." 

The creature shifted, poking its head out to survey the new surroundings. Keralis watched the crest of the creature as it periodically flashed, taking in the shape of the room.

"Is it blind?" Xb asked. Xisuma shrugged.

"I think so. It only reacted to the sounds I made instead of the sight of me. It makes sense, since if this thing really came from the void it would have no use for eyes down there. I guess getting around with a sort of echolocation would be a lot more effective" He released his hold on the creature and set it on the table, giving all of them their first good look at it. 

The black skin of the creature was mottled with deep blue markings, broken here and there by rhythmically flashing cyan dots. It was standing on four limbs, each tipped with a claw that it appeared to be balancing on. A membrane of skin stretched between the front and back limbs, a large surface area that was covered in a pattern of blue and cyan. 

The creature was moving its head around like it was inspecting its surroundings. Then it seemed to yawn and lay down, splaying several tufts of thick whisker-like hairs out on the tabletop. Keralis was smiling as he leant on the table while watching it, Xb and Beef had sat back, neither of them wanting to risk being bitten or scratched, and Wels was doing the exact opposite and leaning in closer to the creature.

"It's pretty cute for something that came out of the void itself." The knight exclaimed. He slowly tickled it under its chin, making it let out a series of clicks. 

"So uh… what do you want to do with it? Why did you bring it here?" Xb questioned. Xisuma blinked, then shrugged again. 

"I didn't realize I had it at first. Basically it popped out of the hole, disappeared then suddenly jumped on me when I fell in. And uh. Well, here we are!" He leaned forward while frowning slightly.

"Thing is… I didn't think anything was even there under the void. As far as I knew… know… it's just… well, void. Nothing else. So… where did this guy come from? Are there more of them? Do they live down there?" Xisuma paused his tirade of questions to see the others staring at him, then cleared his throat.

"I mean, it's… yeah it's just strange." 

"Maybe Notch had something to do with it?" Beef suggested. "Wouldn't be surprised if he just made things on the spot."

"Maybe so…" Xisuma turned to gaze out the window. "I hope Herobrine can get back soon."


	4. Reunion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The evil ones are back. Both of them.

Slowly, Herobrine felt his eyes crack open. He was suspended in the thick void, his limbs hanging limp and swinging slightly as he moved.

Wait he was moving?

Herobrine wriggled slightly and became aware of something that was wrapped tightly around his waist. He placed his hands against it and struggled, but it held firm. The thick soupy atmosphere was flowing past his face, and coupled with the tight grip on his ribs Herobrine could hardly breathe.

When the movement slowed he was nearly unconscious again. The tightness suddenly vanished and dropped him into the fluidic floor, making him heave in a huge breath of the air. His senses came flooding back to him, jerking him back awake.

_I need to get out of here._

Herobrine gripped at the bag, ready to grab the elytra and fly back to the coordinates of the entrance. However, he paused.

_I can't stop. X will have to reset if I do…_

The darkness around him thrummed, unknowable limbs beating around the black.

_I cannot… leave…_

Herobrine wanted nothing more than to flee, but he dropped his hand, instead curling into as small a ball as he could, hoping whatever horror he'd encountered would disappear. He closed his eyes and cast his sixth sense out to try and discern just what it was. However, underneath the overwhelming nothing… was something. A presence, a familiar one. One that was kind of like…

Xisuma?

Herobrine opened his eyes and squinted in the direction of the energy. Against the endless blackdrop there was… the tiniest blip of… red?

The elderitch horror looming over him somehow all but forgotten, Herobrine began to scramble towards the red. Slowly, it grew in size until it became the unmistakable shape of a person. They were wearing armour very similar to Xisuma's, only coloured red instead of the usual green or bee yellow, and actually similar to his strider red. The helmet was very much regularsuma though, only the visor was black and impossible to see through in the lack of light. 

However, even when right beside the Xisuma clone, Herobrine could still barely feel any energy from them at all. It was like the void itself was wrapped around them, hiding any sign of life. Or perhaps… there wasn't that much in the first place.

Herobrine crouched down the best he could and took the person's hand in his own. It was stone cold and skeletal, with barely a pulse that could be felt under their thin skin. Slowly he slid his arms under the person's body and lifted them out of the void. They barely weighed anything, a fact not helped by Herobrine's inhuman strength. He stumbled slightly with the uneven footing, but took the time to examine the stranger when he regained his balance. With the black peeled away, Herobrine definitely recognized this person from years before. This was who he was looking for. Evil Xisuma.

They… did not look or feel all that evil though. Even now, with the tendrils of void gone, barely anything was emanating from the still form. As far as he could tell, he was holding an empty husk, the person within long since starved to death. But there was still something. And he sure as hell hoped that tiny little something would keep being something, since the entire server depended on it.

The overwhelming pressure of nothing suddenly reminded him that he definitely had an important role in keeping that something alive. And himself for that matter. Herobrine looked around, trying to see just where the void horror was. However the attempt was futile, so he instead grabbed the elytra out of his bag and shrugged it on. The comatose admin clone was gathered tightly to his body, and then Herobrine leapt as well as he could into the air. The wings slugged open and cut through the thickness, however the propulsion of a rocket barely pushed him forward, let alone back to the overworld. Herobrine grimaced and set off more fireworks, slowly easing higher and higher. 

The horror did not recede. If anything it circled him, teasing his inability to escape. Or perhaps just observing. The pressure was thinning at a painfully slow pace, with every attempt to ascend at a steeper rate cut down by the atmosphere. Slowly but surely though, Herobrine felt the air lifting off his strained body. The rocket in his hand disintegrated as it ran out of fuel, and he went to fish out another. Only his hand met empty space. He had no more rockets.

With the sheer amount of firepower it took to get him this far, Herobrine had burnt through the ample amounts of rockets that he'd been supplied. He felt the darkness convulse rhythmically, like it was… laughing. Below him, a blindingly bright light opened like a gaping maw, ready to swallow him and his passenger whole.

Herobrine screamed, and instinctively he shot a huge forceful flame from his free hand. The maw snapped shut with an imperceptible shriek, and he felt himself get blown away from the danger. With his heart racing, he shot out another flame, letting it propel him forwards. A glance back told him that the horror was hot on his tail. Where there had simply been darkness, pale cyan lights now glimmered in the black, at least one of which was a pair of eyes. The rest trailed behind, making the horror resemble a monstrous serpent coiling through the void.

The darkness was thumping, like massive wingbeats cutting through the air, and the maw once again split open. Herobrine watched in terror as it lunged forward, then cried out as it snapped closed around them both. He dug his hand into the black and let loose a storm of fire, forcing it to release its hold on them. Then he twisted around and fireballed away, ignoring the spreading numbness that was creeping through his arm. The lights faded away into the darkness below, but Herobrine kept going. He had no idea on what to do now. Since it was now abundantly clear that there were indeed things living in the void, he felt ever more unsafe than before. And poor Ex had been here for how long?

His fire was failing. He had to stop and rest at some point, but where? He'd been gaining height the entire time, so all he could hope for was a stray hole in the bedrock he could cling to, perhaps he'd find the Hermitcraft one by a pure miracle. It was that or a long slow descent back into the depths.

Then something emerged from the fog above him.

\--

Keralis watched Fred the void creature peck at an apple with curiosity. Across the table Grian was also present, his dark eyes locked on Fred. The creature had already been decorated with a pretty bow around its neck and a pair of shoes that it had quickly worn through and pecked to bits. More attempts had been made to give it a hat, but it had been decided after one heck of a scene involving tipped furniture, scratches in the walls and 4 bees for some reason that maybe blocking the thing's primary sensory organ was not a good idea.

Fred picked their way over to Grian and proceeded to climb onto his head and fall asleep. Grian giggled quietly, making sure to keep still to not disturb the new hermitfamily pet. The sight made Keralis snicker too, which in turn gave the giggles to two more hermits which had come in to be an audience to the show. 

Xisuma watched the scene unfold, then turned away with a small smile. Silently, he left the room and went outside, taking a moment to stretch his tired limbs. Soon he found himself a while away, once again pacing back to the bedrock hole. Oh well, a little check can't hurt right?

As X drew closer to the hole, his eyes caught sight of some black shapes resting in a tree that was growing close to the edge. He blinked, picking out 3 more void creatures similar to Fred. They must live under there, there was no other explanation for them suddenly appearing around the hole.

He had to wonder though, holes in the bedrock existed elsewhere. Why had none of these creatures appeared there? Void Gliders - the name he had totally not just conceived on the spot for them - flitting around decked out from the large hole that existed there would have made the dungeon evermore spooky, even if they seemed harmless. And Zedaph hadn't seen the creatures before. If he had there would already be some form of void basketball created with them.

Suddenly, an entire tree sprouted from one of the branches. The Void Gliders skittered away in shock, two of them diving back into the hole. It seemed the server glitches were getting worse by the second - here was a tree branch that had somehow turned itself into a sapling and grown. Herobrine couldn't return from the void soon enough.

With a sigh, Xisuma peered over the edge of the hole, readying himself to jump in. However, what he saw made him freeze.

The hole had grown.

Had Impulse come and widened it while he'd been away? Perhaps he'd thought Herobrine would need something easier to see? 

"Strange stuff, huh?" A chillingly familiar voice said from behind him. Xisuma spun around, his blood turned to ice. Behind him, leaning on the double tree, was Notch.


	5. Getting to know you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In both cases, things may be worse than they seem...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A huge thank you to Ambered for helping me structure this chapter. Definitely helped give me a boost in enthusiasm for writing this fic!

In the void, time lost all meaning. It only took an instant, and Evil Xisuma had gone from happily skipping through the bright fields of the Hermitcraft server to… nowhere. There was no light, the air was suffocatingly heavy, he was suspended, nothing to hold onto. The pressure made it impossible for him to take his helmet off, no matter how much he clawed at the latches. He was trapped.

Only his own body was around to mark the passage of time, but without any reference it soon became the only way to tell time was moving forward at all. The cold was penetrating deeper into his bones, his stomach grew ever emptier, the blackness of the void was slowly covering his wasting form. 

_Xisuma, why?_

Tears often welled in his eyes as he thought about what went wrong. What did he do to get banished into the void? Xisuma had never done such a thing before. He'd been kicked out of servers, yes, but never outright banned. It made him feel… betrayed.

Maybe he deserved it. He'd been nothing but a pain in X's ass over the years. He liked causing chaos, and always took every chance he got to do so. After all, Xisuma was able to easily reverse the damage. His brother was amazing like that. He knew server systems inside out, and the one he and his dumb friends lived in was as much a part of him as his own head was. Ex's efforts at chaos were nothing more than inconveniences at best. X was smart, and definitely had measures in place to stop any total destruction that could occur. The idiots he cared for were likely to cause just as much damage as he ever could, after all.

The withermen were too much though. Ex had completely underestimated how much damage they could cause, and had been forced to go seek X's help before anything got irreversibly destroyed. After that, he vowed to never try something like that again. X had seen how panicked he had been that day. He'd forgiven him.

Had he though? Why would Ex be here if that was true? He'd just kept on with his stupid stupid antics. Stealing, cheating, being a general idiot. No wonder he was here.

He deserved this. The ban was totally warranted. 

He deserved the bitter cold sapping any warmth from his body.

He deserved the crushing pressure that restricted his ability to breathe.

He deserved the endless hunger clawing at his gut. 

He deserved the silence. The isolation. The pain. The darkness.

He deserved to not exist.

…

……

The warmth of something wrapping around him startled Ex. He had long since lost the energy to react. The void had seeped into every crevice of his body, slowly consuming him. Something new felt like a burning torch. 

Ex felt his body get squished against something warm and solid. The parts of him not in contact with the object were chilled by rushing wind. The noises, the sounds! A burst of something exploding, a terrified yell, screeches of the unknown. All of them sounded so far away…

Something sharp stabbed into Ex's belly. He wanted to scream in pain, but hadn't the energy to do so. Instead his exhausted mind let go of consciousness.

\--

Herobrine laid Evil X down gently on some of the blue plants that clung to life on the rocky outcrop. He could still scarcely believe that there even existed anything below bedrock, much less what looked like a whole new biome. Or dimension, really. But other matters had to be attended to first.

Slowly, Ex's armour was taken off piece by piece to gain access to the wounds underneath. When the shirt was carefully peeled back, Herobrine dove into the bag to fish out the bandages and potions that Xisuma had given him. He mentally thanked the admin for packing them despite his protests. Perhaps… did he know Ex would be hurt?

Carefully, the wounds were treated and wrapped, letting Herobrine turn to the issue that he'd been pointedly ignoring: the man was beyond starved. Maybe some weird property of the void had been keeping him alive without food for so long, but now he had been mostly removed from that environment, he wanted to get some nourishment into him as soon as he possibly could. 

"H-hey? Evil...X?" He whispered, lightly tapping the side of Ex's helmet. There came no response, so he tried again. Still nothing, so Herobrine did what any sane person would do and tapped for a third time. This time, however, a barely audible moan came from within the helmet, and Ex twitched slightly. Herobrine's heart skipped a beat, and he smiled awkwardly.

"Hey… Evil X… uhm… Evex… please live… I mean… hi? Uhm. You… you there?" 

When Ex came to, his body was resting on something. On… ground? Was he really on the ground? Something was incessantly tapping on the side of his helmet. He let out a tiny moan and forced some movement into his body. It twitched slightly, but he could still move. Ex summoned any energy he had left and tore his eyes open. Instantly they met the sight of two glowing white eyes staring at him. Who? What? Someone here? He was so confused. Who was this person? Why were they here? Could they have not come earlier?

Herobrine could suddenly feel the gaze of the man laying before him locked onto his face. It was… angry. And scared. Confused, angry, scared, despairing, relieved? Ex was letting every emotion he had run through his brain. However they quickly turned to panic when he felt a small odd gurgle in his gut, and suddenly something was rising in his throat. He began to retch, nausea taking over his senses. How could he get sick? He hadn't eaten for so long?

The stranger had pulled his helmet off, and was now leaning him forward. Ex coughed and an odd black liquid came out of his mouth. It was similar to the stuff that had surrounded him down in the depths; apparently it had made its way inside him too. After a few more minutes Ex seemed to have gagged and coughed most of the void stuff out of his lungs and stomach. He felt emptier than he ever had before, but he could breathe finally. He let himself fall over and sprawl out on the ground. Such a simple feeling that he'd taken for granted for so long. Herobrine continued to examine Ex, instinctively shuffling closer when he saw how violently the man was shivering.

Without the helmet, the similarity of his face to Xisuma's was apparent, with them perhaps being identical if Ex had the correct amount of flesh on his bones. The major difference was hair- where Xisuma kept his hair in a short almost buzzcut, Evil X's was long, bleached an unhealthy white and strewn everywhere. It looked dry and brittle, and Herobrine could only wonder how it fit in that helmet at all.

Ex's gaze locked on to the person with him, taking in the scruffy scarred features, ragged hair and clothes, and the unnerving white eyes. Oh. It's him. 

"Hey Evil X… E...X… Evex? I mean, uh ahrm ah hi. Hej. Hello-" Herobrine stumbled out his words. Ex found it very similar to how he had done so years ago when they had first met each other. Still a nervous wreck it seemed.

"Yes, I get it. Hello. Again." Ex's throat was dry and scratchy, very much unused to the act of talking. He let out a weak cough and closed his eyes again, the bright white already giving him a headache. He noticed for the first time that his chestplate was missing, and something was tightly wrapped around his abdomen. Faintly he remembered getting hurt just before he passed out. Herobrine must have treated his wounds. The Cryptic Destructive God, huh? So far Herobrine was not fulfilling the reputation he had.

Herobrine noted that Ex's voice was strikingly similar to Xisuma's, only rougher from disuse. It was nothing like the fake "evil" sounding voice that he remembered the man having, making him guess that was the helmet's doing. The helmet in question was still sitting next to him, and he grabbed it to examine it closer. Seriously, how did all that hair fit inside? He hadn't taken note of how it fell out when he'd pulled it off. 

A strained moan snapped Herobrine out of his thoughts, making him look over to Ex. The clone had gone limp with his hands pressed into his sunken belly. The helmet was quickly discarded in favour of digging into his bag. Some bottles filled with a viscous yellow fluid were picked out. Honey was liquid enough that it should be easy for Ex to eat, but also held a lot of calories so his body could recover. It was likely that they had been placed in the bag by his bees themselves. They did things like that often.

Herobrine brought a bottle over and propped Ex into his lap. The man made a small noise of protest but did not struggle.

"You need food. I… honey, I have. It's good." He pressed the bottle to Ex's mouth. Ex did not react, so Herobrine instead pulled it away and smeared a bit of honey on his lips instead. 

"C'mon, please eat…" 

Unfortunately, Ex's mind had gotten too fuzzy to understand his words. Something was wiped around his mouth, and he instinctively licked at it. It was…?

"Wha' is tha'?" Ex asked.

"Honey." Came the answer. He let the taste of the honey hover in his mouth for a few more seconds before swallowing it.

"It's… sweet." He admitted. After so long spent alone and starving, Ex had not expected the first thing for him to taste to be so… good. Although in truth he hadn't ever expected to taste anything again, what with the whole being banned thing. 

The sudden presence of something in his stomach after months of being empty had awakened an extreme feeling of hunger. When the object which he figured to be a bottle was brought back, he latched onto it and was instantly rewarded with more of the amazing substance. It was quite possibly the best thing he'd ever tasted. However, all too soon Ex felt his eyes begin to droop. His stomach was full, and Herobrine was so warm and cozy to snuggle against. A deep exhaustion had set in; he couldn't stop himself from falling asleep.

At that, Herobrine pulled the thick coat out of his bag and carefully wrapped the emaciated man in it. He shuffled over to a rock wall and leant against it, supporting Ex in his arms until he was cozily secured against him. Ex seemed to cuddle into the embrace, perhaps seeking warmth, or maybe just the contact with another person. Herobrine was happy to comply; after all he was exhausted himself. 

Unfortunately, he couldn't rest. Ex had to get back to the server, and sitting here wouldn't make that happen. Instead, after taking a few minutes to make sure Ex was properly asleep, Herobrine tightened his grip on the admin clone and rose to his feet. The bag was hoisted to his side, and the duo set off into the unknown darkness. 

\--

"How are you here?" Xisuma spluttered. Notch simply smirked.

"You thought a ban would keep me out? Xisuma, I _made_ this universe." He stated, spreading his hands out to gesture to everything around him.

"You left though. A long time ago too. So why are you here?" Xisuma clenched his fists slightly, dreading the answer. 

"Unfinished business of course!" Notch replied. "This time you cannot disrupt me."

"Look, I don't know what you have against Herobrine, but if you have a problem with him you have a problem with all of us." X gritted his teeth. Why couldn't this so called 'god' just leave them alone?

"I'm more surprised that we don't agree. Have you seen what this bug can do? It's a world destroyer, Xisuma. Why are you defending it? I never meant for it to somehow develop a mind if it's own. I don't even know how that happened."

"First of all, you will not refer to Herobrine as an 'it'." Xisuma's temper was rising by the minute. "And secondly, he is most definitely not a world destroyer. You have caused more destruction than he ever has. And you've been here for all of ten minutes." 

Notch leaned to the side slightly, his black eyes fixed on the hole that bored all the way down into the void behind X.

"Care to explain that then?" He asked.

"Yes. Tango and Impulse made this hole." Xisuma was quick to answer. Notch raised an eyebrow. 

"You're saying that a regular player _broke bedrock_?" He challenged with a tone of disbelief.

"Yes. Believe it or not but things have changed since you left. Things are possible now that would not have been so back then. I can even call Impulse in to demonstrate bedrock breaking if you wish." Xisuma pulled his communicator out as if to make a point. Notch raised his hand and shook his head.

"Whatever. Point is, I made this mistake, I gotta fix it."

Xisuma's blood began to boil.

"So when you develop something with their own thoughts and feelings, you set out to rip that away from them? Even if by accident, you cannot kill who you create. That's… that's awful! You're awful!"

Notch rolled his eyes.

"Yeaaah, like you have accidentally created powerful sentient beings to deal with before."

"You are correct. I have." Xisuma crossed his arms. "And not once have I ever thought about destroying him."

That was a lie, but X knew better now. He understood Evil Xisuma was his own person, and no matter how much of a bastard he was, didn't deserve to be killed, removed, or whatever horrible fate Notch was trying to bestow on Herobrine. 

...right? After all, Herobrine was in fact somewhere far in the void trying right now, trying to retrieve his clone from a ban that had honestly been very spur of the moment. He'd just already been tired and annoyed, and Ex was dancing along while singing a song about destroying the server…

A shocked shout snapped him out of his trance, and Xisuma gasped at the sight of a black enchanted blade sticking out of Notch's chest. It disappeared back through the hole, and Doc stepped out from behind Notch.

"D-Doc?!?" Xisuma was flabbergasted. Doc grinned at him.

"Heya." 

"Doc, man! You… you have some serious balls to do that!"

"24 of them, heh. Plus it's not the first time." 

"What?"

"What?"

A silence fell over the trio. Then Notch raised his arm and snapped his fingers together. Doc dropped like a sack of rocks, the outline of his body flicking in and out of existence. He seemed to be trying to yell, but was only able to make a series of pained sounding hisses.

"Doc? Oh no!" Xisuma knelt down beside the cyborg, not knowing what to do. Great, this was bound to happen at some point.

"Seriously? What is it with you and removals?" He shot at Notch. "Jeez!"

"It quite clearly stabbed me." Notch replied. His eyes were locked onto Doc, watching him struggle against the universe trying to erase his existence. 

"...it...?" X just sighed sadly and sat down. Notch was really really pissing him off. Calling Herobrine and "it" was bad enough, but Doc too? Just how hateful was this so-called "God"?

"Ugh… uggh…" Doc slowly pushed himself off the floor as the glitches faded away. "God... dammit…"

"Huh. Usually it lasts a lot longer…" Notch remarked. "Back when I tried removing Herobrine, it'd be down for hours. Same state."

"And you… you just… watched?" Doc rasped, glaring daggers at Notch. "You never even considered how he felt?"

"You think it has feelings?" Notch replied. Xisuma could feel the enraged growl building in Doc's throat before he heard it, and he quickly clamped his hand around Doc's jaws before the big teeth came out to play. As much as he wanted to simply stand back and let a very angry monster go after Notch, doing so would only make the situation worse. So instead he swallowed his anger and cleared his throat.

"Say, Notch, how about we go somewhere more suited to talking instead of just sitting here out in the middle of nowhere? I can make some tea and we can figure this all out, sound good?"

Immediately some outraged incredulous noises burst from a still-muzzled Doc. X honestly could not blame him.

"Okay. Sure. Fine." Notch replied, his black eyes narrowed. With a relieved exhale, Xisuma released his hold on Doc, then immediately realised his mista-

"ARE YOU KIDDING ME SIZUMA? A TEA PARTY? I SWEAR TO GOD-" The cyborg's yelling continued as they turned to set out.

This was going to be… interesting, to say the least.


	6. The encounter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two different scenarios, two different monsters

Herobrine stumbled slightly, taking a moment to shift Ex on his back into a more secure position before carrying on. His back was aching from the sharp points of bones digging into it, but loosening his hold would make the man fall off his back completely. He really hoped Ex would wake soon, if only to get him more food. Then he could find a place to rest for a short while, hopefully stay safe, help Ex regain some strength, get home...

An odd rattling sound came from somewhere ahead, startling him out of his thoughts. Herobrine froze when he saw the hulking shape of something in the thick void fog. Slowly, he backed away and skirted around it, not wanting to deal with any more void monsters. The shape vanished out of sight as he crept behind a grove of odd plants, and he sat down, his heart hammering in his chest. 

Slowly, his pulse slowed, and Herobrine looked over his shoulder at Ex, who still seemed to be out. His focus drifted from the clone to the flora behind him. Curiously, Herobrine ran his finger over one of the waving black tendrils, then squeaked when it suddenly glowed cyan and rattled in much the same way the monster had just a minute ago. The sound he made caused more of the plants to activate, and the sound was mirrored by something further away in the direction of the monster.

_ Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck- _

Footsteps were thudding closer and closer. Then the massive form of some beast shifted into view. It ambled around unsteadily, letting out a series of deep moans as it walked. Two tendrils grew out of its head, and Herobrine recognized it as one of the tendrils he'd found down in the void. They waved idly in the air, swaying as the creature rocked from side to side. However, despite being only a few blocks away, it did not attack. It didn't even seem to acknowledge the presence of the strangers in its home. Was it friendly?

Herobrine did not intend to find out, not with the state Ex was in. So instead he remained frozen in place as the monster wobbled around. 

Something a short way away hit the floor, and the tendrils on the creature's head suddenly glowed, along with the plants behind Herobrine. The monster moaned and started trudging towards the source of the sound. Ah, he understood now. The creature relied on sound to get around. As long as he was quiet, he was safe. 

Herobrine slowly got to his feet and began to creep away in the opposite direction of the monster. He definitely had to find somewhere safe. If the life down here relied on sound to get around, he wanted to stay as quiet as possible. And tired Herobrine was a clumsy Herobrine, which would not help him achieve that goal.

Finally, Herobrine found a small gap in between two bedrock spikes. It opened into a small room inside, but with plenty of space to lay Ex down. As he shuffled away, Ex struggled onto his side and curled into a loose ball.

"You… you awake?" Herobrine asked quietly. The emaciated man gave a small nod in reply. He was already beginning to shiver again, which Herobrine responded to by tucking the thick coat around him. With how thin he was, there was no chance that Ex would be able to keep himself warm. Luckily for him Herobrine was basically a living furnace, so direct contact was enough to protect him from the cold. When away from him, however, Ex's skeletal body shed heat way too quickly. Herobrine quickly began to work on rectifying that problem.

Ex blinked slowly as he watched Herobrine fish some netherrack and magma rocks out of the bag and pile them into a campfire. He tried to set the pile alight, but after several failed attempts gave up and looked over at Ex.

"How you feeling?" Herobrine asked awkwardly.

"Wonderful. 'm doin' great." Ex replied, making him flinch. It was so strange to hear the voice of Xisuma with such a rough tone to it. 

"Where m'elmet?" He asked. Herobrine pulled the helmet out of his bag to show him, then stored it away again. The answer seemed to satisfy the clone, as he closed his eyes again.

"Hey uh… I… got more… more to eat." Herobrine quickly told him before he fell back asleep. The prospect of food definitely piqued Ex's interest, as he lifted his head to stare at Herobrine expectantly. Herobrine took out another honey bottle and uncapped it, then held it steady as Ex drank the liquid inside. Then the empty bottle was taken away, and Ex's head drooped to the floor.

"S'tired… cold…" He murmured. At that Herobrine shuffled over to let Ex rest his head on his lap. 

"...Thank you." Ex whispered. 

The two remained silent, simply sharing the companionship of the other. Herobrine's fingers began to absentmindedly play with Ex's hair. It was dry like straw, and dust often flaked off of it. Nevertheless the fiddling soon turned into a braid, and it quickly reached the end of the hair. Ex appeared to have fallen back asleep to the relaxing feeling, and Herobrine himself was feeling the pull of unconsciousness. He carefully laid down, and sighed as he let his eyes close. Just a short nap...

\--

The amount of tension in the room Xisuma was sat in could almost be cut with a knife. He, Doc and Notch were situated around a table, each of them with a cup of tea in front of them. Doc was glaring daggers at Notch, and most likely designing ways to actually shoot physical daggers at him with his eye. Notch was not returning the hostility, instead directing it at the mug his hands were curled around.

Xisuma let out a breath and sipped at his tea. He really could not predict any outcome of this situation that didn't turn violent eventually. Even right now he had a boot pressed down on one of Doc's feet to keep him grounded.

"So, how did you find your way here then, Notch?" X asked, hoping to break the uncomfortable atmosphere.

"I have my ways" Notch replied, not pausing his staring contest with his mug. He did not seem to be willing to cooperate. 

"Like what ways?" 

"Ways."

Xisuma felt his eye twitch in annoyance. 

"Okay, so, what you been doing since you left?" He asked. 

"Anything." Came the reply. Notch seemed very disinterested in any small talk attempts.

"Care to elaborate?"

"No."

A sudden bang made X jump, and he looked over to Doc who was in his feet leaning towards Notch menacingly.

"Let's just get to the point. What are you so intent on going after Herobrine? He hasn't done anything to deserve this!" He snarled. Notch finally lifted his gaze from his mug to meet Doc's eyes.

"I have a duty."

"A duty of what? A duty to make everyone miserable? You're accomplishing that just fine!" Doc spat. He gestured to Xisuma.

"Sizuma lost his admin powers! Without an admin the system is breaking down as we speak! You've basically destroyed our server, all thanks to some obsession you have with killing someone who does not deserve it! Some duty." 

"Don’t you understand? I would not have had to do this if you were not hiding that mistake on your precious server.” Notch rebutted.

Xisuma nearly choked on his drink, then slammed his tea down on the table, sending it splashing over the rim onto his armour.

“What on earth kind of logic is that?? You are blaming us for you just traipsing into our server and breaking it? For… for having a strange friend?? I…” He trailed off, his brain stalling as he tried in vain to puzzle out Notch’s quite frankly idiotic reasoning.

“Why are you so protective of a glitch?” Notch leaned forward, his soulless black eyes narrowed. “Glitches have no place in the world.”

“I’d like to introduce you to Quasi connectivity.” Doc suddenly cut in. Notch’s attention snapped to Doc, his mouth open to protest. However before a sound could be uttered, Doc carried on, listing his examples on his fingers as he went.

“Then we got Tnt duplication, update suppression, chunk loading, gravity block duping, any other dupers with coral… I can go on. My friends over on Scicraft know much more about thiss. Literally anything they do iss much more dangerous than Herobrine could ever be.”

Doc’s face was contorted in barely suppressed anger.

“When I firsst met him, glitch was the furthest thing from my mind. In fact, the only time I even conssidered it was when he got removed. Which, if I recall correctly, iss something that YOU do!”

Xisuma eyed the deep gouges that Doc’s clawed hands were leaving in the tabletop. Yep, this situation was going exactly how he had predicted it would go. He motioned for Doc to sit back down, to which the cyborg complied with a huff. Then he took a sip of his tea and continued on himself.

“The last removal incident had the server throwing errors for weeks. Trying to fix this “bug” will break a whole lot more than just letting him be. So just let. Him. Be.”

Notch was silent, his face deadpan. If there was any thoughts going on inside his head, he was very good at not showing it. Then he sighed and leant on his elbow.

"Seems there's no teaching you lot. How about you "teach" me instead. Go on then, what is it like? What does it do?"

"He hass a name. USSE IT." Doc hissed at him. X quickly pressed his boot back down on one of his toes, making him squeak in surprise.

"When Herobrine first arrived on our server last season, he was… well, terrified. Paranoid, badly hurt, hungry, constantly on the run. His reputation of evil had taken a heavy toll on him, physically and mentally." Xisuma felt his mood cool off slightly as he remembered how his friend had been back then. The image of the poor scrawny cryptid flashed across his mind, making him feel slightly sad. Since then Herobrine had changed, and for the better too. Between the new happy expressions, his malnourished frame finally filling out, the pulling of more and more harmless and frankly wholesome pranks indicating he was feeling very much at home on his server...

"The only way we ever managed to catch him was when he got too exhausted and hurt to run anymore. Even after we helped him, his past made it extremely hard for him to trust us." Notch's eyes were locked on his face intently. 

"The poor soul did not understand the simple concept of compassion. To Hero, us not attacking him on sight was… well, it had never happened before. Or... most of us not attacking anyway." Doc shuffled sheepishly as X shot him a glance.

"I mean… at least that… helped us finally… catch and… help…? Yeah… okay yeah I really made a huge mistake there…" Doc leant his face on his hands, staring down at the table. Xisuma grimaced. 

"Herobrine took a long time to recover and finally integrate himself into our home. Nowadays he's as much a part of the family as any of our other players. I was by his side the entire process, and I've seen just how much progress he's made. Because of that, I will NOT let you take that away from him."

Notch leaned forward.

“And what do you plan on doing about that? As I recall, you do not have any admin powers anymore.”

Maybe Xisuma took his boot off Doc’s foot intentionally, maybe he accidently lifted it in shock, maybe Doc just tore himself free from the hold himself. However it happened, the next chain of events included over 100 kilos of green cyborg fury launching himself over the table and slamming Notch against the wall so hard that Xisuma’s mug left the table for a second.

**“Lisssten ssss-ere you bitch-ass motherfucker. I’m DONE with ssitting here and lissening to your sself abssorbed babbling about right and wrong. You LEFT. You ssould stay GONE. The world iss a better place wiss-out you.”**

Notch scowled at Doc.

“Says you. Creepers aren’t meant to talk. Listen to you, can’t form words right. You’re just as much of a mistake as It is.”

“Sssingss change. EVERYSSING changesss. Everyssing exsscept for YOU.”

A visible shudder ran through Doc, and his outline shimmered as if it was not entirely there. Xisuma stepped forward, dismayed that Doc had been removed  _ again _ . At this rate he’d be on par with Herobrine by the end of the week. He waited for the cyborg to collapse so he could pull him away. However, despite the shake from his legs, Doc remained in place, pinning Notch to the wall. At this, Notch’s face shifted from a smug scowl to something that could be interpreted as slightly fearful. The sight brought a memory back to Xisuma of something that had happened shortly before this ill fated meeting.

_ Plus it’s not the first time. _

Doc  _ has _ actually killed Notch before. Granted, he respawned, but Doc had killed him. If he did so again here, Notch wouldn’t respawn.

It was looking increasingly likely that Doc would do so right here.

“I’m a God, you dumb plant. What are you going to do?” The fearful note in Notch’s voice was not missed.

**“I do not CARE if you are a god. Ssere iss a way to desstroy you. And I. Will. Find it. Mark my fucking wordss.”**

The next moment Notch was gone. Xisuma dove forward to catch Doc as he crumpled.

“Oh my goodness me, I’m actually pretty scared right now.” X chuckled. “Are you okay?”

“Good.” Doc rolled off of X and took out his communicator. A few moments later a portal opened, and Doc was stuffing his gear into an enderchest.

“Wait, Doc, what are you doing?” Xisuma stepped over, wanting to stop the cyborg before he went and got himself badly hurt. “You’re still getting removed, you can’t just hop off the serve-”

“I gotta go talk to some friendss. Be back soon.” Doc cut him off before he could finish. With that, he stepped into the portal and closed it behind him, leaving Xisuma alone in the room with 3 spilt mugs of tea.

“Oh no. What is he going to do…”


	7. Lessons learnt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It seems Herobrine isn't the only one bringing outsiders to the server...

Evil Xisuma awoke with a start, hyper aware of pressure all around him. Where was he? This was not the void? Why is there warmth? The void was not warm? He squeezed his eyes shut and breathed in deeply, trying to remember just where he was or what had happened to him. 

The weight over his shoulders shifted slightly, making Ex jump. Was this a person? He cracked an eye open and took in the sight of a slightly tattered cyan shirt. At that point the events of the… unknown time period before came flooding back. 

He was no longer alone.

Ex snuggled into Herobrine's shirt, suddenly overwhelmed by the fact he was not alone anymore. Another living, breathing person, right here. With him.

Slowly his heart rate slowed as he relaxed, wanting to simply stay in this moment forever.

That was when Ex's stomach twisted in on itself. Ex groaned slightly and rolled over, the thick covering over he and Herobrine falling away. Instantly the freezing air bit into him, and he quickly huddled back into the safe warmth. However doing so only sent another pang of hunger shooting through him. Ex whimpered slightly and clung to Herobrine's shirt. He needed to get some food, but at the same time it was way too cold to even consider leaving the position he was in.

Slowly, Ex began to gather the cover around himself. He pushed away from the warmth, shivering slightly as even the heavy protection was penetrated by the cold. Then he shuffled over to the bag and opened it, digging through the contents until he pulled out a bottle. Sure enough, it was filled with the yellow substance he'd tasted before - honey, Herobrine had called it. The bottle was swiftly uncorked and downed, Ex barely even tasting it before he swallowed. He dropped the bottle and looked back into the bag, quickly grabbing another bottle to drink that as well. The sound of someone stretching made him pause briefly, but then he disregarded it and went to pull out a third bottle. The next moment Herobrine was wrestling the half empty bottle out of his grasp.

"Hey! What are you doing? M'ungry! Geddoff-"

"Did you just… all of it?" Herobrine sounded like he was panicking.

"Yeah? Was 'ungry. What of it?" Ex asked, suddenly feeling a wave of nausea wash over him. He groaned slightly, prompting Herobrine to sweep his hair over his shoulder out of the way. Just in time.

Herobrine sighed as Ex coughed out the last of the contents of his stomach and went limp. He gathered the clone to his body and hugged him tightly. Slowly Ex began to stop shivering, eventually relaxing into the embrace entirely. 

"Well… thas bloody awful…" He mumbled into Herobrine's chest. Herobrine simply gave him a sympathetic headpat. Ex shuffled slightly, then made a noise of protest as Herobrine lifted him off his lap. He found himself getting swaddled snugly into the warm fabric that was wrapped around him, then laid down next to the dusty remains of the campfire. Herobrine held a flame to the rocks again, letting out an annoyed grunt when the fire died out almost immediately. A few minutes later he was forced to settle with a smouldering pile of pebbles instead of a fire. It seemed there wasn't enough oxygen in the air to sustain a true flame. 

In that time, Ex had closed his eyes, exhausted by the effort he'd been forced to expend. Herobrine watched him twitch and mumble things to himself while he tried to figure out what to do next. Ex had eaten and subsequently vomited all the honey he had left, so there was no longer any food that he could easily consume. He dug into the bag and pulled out the rations that he'd been supplied with. It consisted of some steak, golden carrots, bread, baked potatoes and sweet berries, along with a single cookie left over from the stash Zedaph had slipped him just before his journey into the void. They were quickly hidden away again should Ex awaken and try to find something to eat. Didn't need a repeat of the events that had just transpired. 

Ex himself had curled back into a small ball and was finally somewhat peacefully asleep. Herobrine tucked the coat around him tighter, then got to his feet to head to the entrance. He stooped to collect the dropped empty bottles before making his way out into the caverns. The sound of flowing water was quickly picked out through the eerie quiet, and Herobrine started towards it.

Soon enough he came across a spring that flowed into a small pool, and then down into a lava lake. He sat down at the edge and cupped some water in his hands to drink. The water was freezing cold but very refreshing; perhaps he'd been dehydrated by his stay down in the void. 

Soon he swapped from drinking to cleaning out the bottles. When they were all filled, Herobrine quickly ran back to the shelter, not wanting to keep Ex waiting any longer. Said clone hadn't moved at all, but his breathing was still steady, if slightly shallow. Herobrine smiled as he took a pot out of his bag and set it on the pitiful attempts at a fire. The rocks were heated back to temperature, and then Herobrine set about cutting some of the rations into smaller chunks. Somehow it didn't seem feasible to use gold plated carrots in cooking, but there wasn't really much else to choose from. 

A while later, the water was beginning to boil. Evil X was still out, but he had shuffled around a few times in his sleep and mumbled a few nonsense sentences. 

Herobrine added the ingredients to the water pot, then sat and watched it boil. He really had no idea how to do this whole "cooking" thing, since he mostly either ate whatever raw food he scavenged out in the wild, or, more recently, just had over 20 friends that were more than willing to feed him whenever.

Ex suddenly sneezed, making Herobrine jump.

"Why it smell like burning?" He mumbled while rolling over and opening his eyes. They stopped on Herobrine, who was in the process of reheating the ember pile under the pot.

"Ah. Oh no."

"Hej." Herobrine grinned awkwardly.

"I don't even need to look into that pot to know I'm not eating that…" Ex struggled to push himself off the floor, ultimately failing and just going limp instead.

"What will you have instead?" 

“The honey.”

Herobrine sighed.

“Honey is gone. You ate it all.” He replied. Ex huffed indignantly.

“Well go get some more.”

“Evex, we’re in the middle of the literal void. Where do you think I can get honey?”

“Where did you get it before then?”

“I brought it with me!”

“Why didn’t you bring more?”

Herobrine buried his face in his hands. He pointed to the pot, then turned away to rearrange his bag. 

“How do I know you won’t poison me? You did so before.” Ex grunted. Herobrine twisted around to give Ex a confused look.

“When did I…?”

“Why else would I have gotten sick?”

Herobrine blinked, then shook his head.

“That’s just what happens if a person in your condition eats too much at once.” He explained. “Why would I poison you?”

“You’re Herobrine! That’s what you do!” Ex growled. He lifted his head to glare at Herobrine, but his face dropped when he saw the hurt expression the cryptid had.

“... Do you not?”

“N-no?”

“Then why did you help me back then all those years ago? When I attempted to destroy my brother's server again?” He asked. Herobrine looked down at the floor.

“You… first to ask anything of me… for so long. Usually a whole lot more blades involved…” 

Ex lowered his head again, suddenly feeling like a huge jerk.

“...sorry…” He mumbled into the crook of his elbow. Herobrine shuffled away and sat by the wall, staring at the rock glumly. He heard Ex shuffle around behind him, and the sound of a bottle being dipped in liquid.

“Take it slow”

“I know I know…” Ex grumbled. He sipped at the thin broth, then suppressed a gag at the flavour.

"Taste bad?" Herobrine asked, finally looking back over to Ex who quickly nodded.

"Downright bloody awful. Who taught you to cook, my brother?"

"I taught myself. Just now." Herobrine admitted. "Usually I never had the chance to learn."

Ex finished the last dregs of the broth and quickly set the bottle down before his stomach tried to trick him into having any more. He laid back down to rest, pulling the covers around his body.

"When I'm next awake I'll teach you a few basics." Ex promised. "If just to make it more bearable for me."

Herobrine snorted, then watched his breathing slow into a relaxed rhythm, then got to his feet. The clone needed to take some time to digest what he'd just drank, and while that was happening Herobrine wanted to explore further out. Perhaps find some native food sources, or resources that could be helpful. With one last glance back at Ex, Herobrine turned away and ducked back out of the shelter.

\--

Doc stumbled out of the portal and instantly hit the cold hard ground. He scrabbled at the ice while trying to stand, but ultimately gave in and opted to just lay in place. The glitches of the universe trying to erase him were still very much occuring, and he was in so much pain he could barely think. Any time now…

Finally, a shadow appeared over him, and faintly Doc heard a voice. He forced out a strained grunt, then relented and let himself slip into unconsciousness. 

The next thing he knew, he was laying on a bed. 

"Doc? Doc? Are you there?" A gentle yet thickly German voice was speaking to him. Doc exhaled roughly and rubbed at his eye.

"Sup Mango. Heya." He slowly pushed himself off the bed, turning to look at the small crowd that had gathered by his side. It was an odd one to say the least. Sure, there were humans dotted here and there, but also robots, block-forged, vaguely humanoid masses of unknown origin, and stood at the very front was an oversized but sharply dressed squirrel.

"Doc, what was happening to you? We looked at the code… it was like you were being erased!" Ilmango asked, sounding slightly panicked. Doc nodded in response.

"I basically was. Related to that, you guys want to come kill a god?"

Mango turned to look at the person just behind him - a humanoid slime block who was also wearing a suit. They shrugged.

"Sure, was wondering when that would happen." The slime block replied, the words being perfectly clear, if also laced with a German accent, despite the apparent lack of a mouth. 

Doc hopped out of the bed with a grin. He knew Methodz would be ready to go along with whatever crazy idea he threw at him.

"Come on then!" He beckoned, jumping out of the bed. The group parted as Doc went through them and out of the room, leaving Mango and the slime block to look at each other in concerned confusion.

"Methodz, do you have any idea what he's talking about?"

Methodz shook his head.

"It's Hermitcraft, they probably have some sort of event going on over there, and Doc wants to go all in like usual. So let's go!"

\--

"So what you are saying is you want to somehow kill a player that's in creative? Or something like that?" Mango asked, feeling a hell of a lot more concerned for Doc's sanity by now. Not that such a feeling was any different from literally every other moment that he and Doc were in the same room together, but this time… he seemed so  _ adamant _ .

"Yes."

"Well, from the top of my head, the only way for creative players to be killed is if they fall into the void. Whether there's something down there we can research and weaponise seems like the most straightforward course of action." Methodz already seemed totally on board with the plan. The two were as mad as each other.

"We got a big hole in bedrock to start at luckily enough. Just over this way." Doc motioned the two scicrafters over to him, then pointed to a massive hole that was blown into the landscape. Mango scurried forward to look over the edge. Sure enough, the hole punched through the bedrock, exposing the black void below. A small dark shape flitting around the edges caught his eye, but when he turned to look at it, nothing was there.

"Okay that's a big hole wow. What happened here?" Methodz jumped down into the hole, gliding to the bottom and landing gracefully on the bedrock.

"We needed a void hole. We got a void hole." Doc thudded down heavily, with Ilmango following right behind. Mango peered down into the void, a few ideas forming in his head.

"So do you think that there's some material down there that hurts creative players?" He asked. Doc shrugged and nodded.

"It's a theory." He replied. "If there is, we got a weapon. If not, well, the void will still be there to study." 

"I can go down to see if there's anything if you want" Mango offered. "What do you think can hold void stuff? A bucket?" 

"Sure why not." Doc answered with a chuckle. "If a bucket can hold lava why not void?" 

"Try a bottle if that doesn't work." Methodz added while placing down a bed. "Good luck! Here's a respawn for you just in case."

Mango sat down on the bed for a moment while he readied his equipment, then turned to the void. He spread his elytra and hopped into the depths below with a cheerful wave. Methodz waved back, then simply stared after him for a while.

"Is he even registered on this server?" He asked suddenly. 

"... Surely. You two have been here before." Doc answered, now questioning that answer himself.

Perhaps that question came slightly too late.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is new territory boizzz. I searched for Scicraft fanfic on here and only found very few, most Doc centric and one a crack fic (literally). I got into a whole other SMP for this story and I'm sure as heck going to see it through.


	8. Exploration

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He discovers things. Both outside and within.

Herobrine was crouched next to a large waving plant considering it's edibility when he heard the flutter and clicks of something behind him. He turned around, dread flowing through him. However instead of the huge monster he feared, a small creature was clinging to the walls of the cave. It dropped down onto the floor, then sat down and scratched at its head with a hind claw. Herobrine sighed in relief at the sight, and turned back to the plants. 

One of the leaves was gripped and torn off, and he winced as an almost silent scream was emitted from the break.

“What on earth?” 

Shaking off his surprise after a moment, he sat down and nibbled at the leaf, proceeding to spit it out when he tasted just how bitter and oily it was. Whatever these were, they were not good to eat. 

Herobrine quickly tried to stick the cut edges of the leaf back together, but watched as it dropped to the ground instead. He stared at the leaf for a long moment, then turned around to the creature that was still sitting behind him. It did not look like it had much meat on it, but when faced with no other options…

The creature clicked and shot away as he pounced, causing him to slam into the earth. Herobrine coughed at the dust that was scattered around him before getting to his feet. Definitely not a good food source; there was no way he’d ever catch one of those, and even if he did it was not worth it.

On he went, further into the caverns. They twisted in amongst one another, forming a confusing network of tunnels that wormed their way in between boulders of bedrock that were set into the walls. Every now and then he came across a small warped fungus, and he used the wood from one along with the 3 diamonds he’d found before to make a pick. Briefly Herobrine experimented with making a bedrock shovel with the bit of bedrock he had, but ultimately failed. He stuffed the pebble away, then set off again with the pick in hand.

His first instinct was to mine part of the non-bedrock stone to figure out what it was. It was rough and uneven in texture, sporting a dark grey colour. A quick test told him that he could make stone tools out of the stuff. However, with a diamond pick on hand he had no use for them.

Herobrine sighed and stashed the stone away before continuing his wandering. He jumped over a crevice filled with lava, dodged around pits that led out into open void, ducked under low hanging bedrock protrusions, and dug through gaps too small to fit into otherwise.

Often enough he spotted a vein of ore, finding iron, gold, redstone and even a strange ore speckled with reddish brown and light turquoise. Along with those more plants were found, ranging from the bright cyan of the twisting vines and out of place warped nylium to the deep almost blacks of the plants that rattled to his footsteps. 

Once or twice Herobrine crossed paths with an endermen, most often finding them hanging around the stunted warped forests that clung to life down in the darkness. They watched him intently as he bit down on some warped wart. The minty flavour flooded his senses, only to be immediately followed by such sourness that Herobrine gagged. He actually had hope for a second there… The next test was a twisting vine, and surprisingly it didn't taste awful. Though it didn't really taste at all in all honesty. It reminded Herobrine of the times he was forced to eat leaves off trees in the years gone by. He shuddered slightly at the painful memories, pushing them away as he went around to collect a sizeable quantity of vines. Then he set off again. 

Herobrine's next stop was at the remains of a very dead looking tree with glowing lichen draped over the branches. He drew his fist back and struck at the wood, only to have the shock of the oddly resistant material leave him shaking his fist in pain. Was this not wood? Herobrine frowned and chopped at the trunk with his pick, blinking at how easily it broke. He grabbed the log and examined it over. It looked like a regular oak log, but was heavier than usual and also duller in colour. He crafted the log into planks and placed one down, gasping when he saw the familiar looking old dull planks. They… looked so similar to the ones he had built with a long time ago… 

Herobrine found himself leaning on the planks, half lost in the memories of that long-gone plane of green. Everything was simple back then. It was warm, nothing could harm him, he was free to build…

But he was alone. And just a puppet.

All of the logs were chopped down and stashed away. Herobrine went on, looking around to spot any more as he made his way back to the shelter.

\--

Ex snuggled into the bed of twisting vines as Herobrine tucked them into a nest around him. He sat back, then laid down to wait for Ex to wake. The information about the world outside their small safe hole was running through his head, with all the discoveries being slotted into the catalogue of things he already knew.

It seemed warped nylium existed quite happily down here, although it grew over loose black soil instead of netherrack. However, there were no shroomlights in any of the large warped mushrooms, indicating that they originally grew in the nether. Perhaps the spores of these mushrooms fall down below, making their way into the nether and adapting to the hot conditions? Perhaps that was a reason for the crimson fungi that seemed to spontaneously sprout out of the usually cultivated nether wart…

Next was the stone. It was a lovely dark grey colour, darker than basalt but not as black as blackstone. Herobrine quickly found himself wanting to build nice bricks out of the stuff. Perhaps he’ll have to go talk to a mason about it when he got back home. The one living in his base was open to the idea of cutting new shapes into the various stones of the world. Hopefully this new stone would be no exception.

Maybe the mason could take a look at the petrified wood too. Seeing those old greyish planks gave such a wave of nostalgia to Herobrine that he'd already vowed to bring as many logs back as possible. If only to attempt to recreate the old times. Only it would be better, because he'd have Ex with him, who would give Xisuma his admin powers back and then there would be no Notch to interfere with his fun-

Ex suddenly sneezed, an action followed by a surprised yelp. He blinked around the small cave, his eyes finally coming to rest on Herobrine. 

"M'ungry."

Herobrine closed his eyes, barely suppressing a chuckle. He shuffled over to Ex, then proceeded to drag the vine bed towards the pile of magma rocks in the center of the room. Ex wiggled his way into position, then sat with his warm blanket around him, staring expectantly at Herobrine.

"So. We doing this?" He asked impatiently.

"I need instructions first!" Herobrine replied, already panicking slightly. "What do I do?"

"What did you do last time?" Ex questioned. Herobrine's mind went blank. 

"I uh. Uhh… stuff. Got stuff. Did...things… ja." 

"What do we have on hand?" Finally a question he could answer. Herobrine pulled out the steaks, vegetables and bread. Ex looked at the pitiful ingredient selection and scratched his chin thoughtfully.

"Did my brother supply you with this?" He asked.

"Except the sweet berries. Joe gave those." Herobrine answered. Ex snorted. 

"Figured, nothing to use as seasoning, just all the basics." He pointed to the berries, and then the pot.

"Can do something with that. Sauce maybe." He then indicated to the meat.

"Cut some of that into chunks." He ordered. Herobrine complied, pausing every now and then to look at Ex for reassurance. Ex nodded along, giving directions and answering questions as he went.

"Water in the pot. Let it boil." 

"Mash those berries. Add in the water."

"Add the meat now."

"You can chop the vegetables."

"Don't cut your finger off."

"Bread we usually have on the side. I… don't know if I can have that…"

"Why have you not added the veg yet?"

"Gotta cover the pot and let it simmer now."

"What do you mean you don't have a lid? Every pot has a lid!"

"I think the heat's cooling off."

After a while Herobrine and Ex were sat watching the steam rise from the edges of the pot. Ex was drooling slightly, while Herobrine had a bowl ready. 

"I think it's done." Ex announced. He watched as Herobrine scooped some of the stew into the bowl, then stared down at it waiting for it to cool.

"Are you not having any?" He asked.

"No." Herobrine replied. Ex frowned.

"You criticizing my cooking ability?" He demanded, looking rather offended.

"Firstly, you just gave directions. I still did the work. And secondly I just want to save it for you. I don't need it. Right now you do. You… ja?" Herobrine tried to reason. "It smells really good, ja. Not disliking. Not… not hating? Like… I'm sure it's good. Try it?"

Ex was squinting at him, his face displaying slight confusion. However he sighed and sipped at the stew, nodding as he did so.

"Mms'good."

"That's good." Herobrine sighed in relief. He laid down, keeping an eye on Ex should he start eating too much too quickly. However it seemed the clone had very much learnt his lesson and was taking his time. 

"So, mm, Herobrine… what mmmade you come here then?" Ex suddenly asked in-between mouthfuls. "Whatcha been doin'?"

"I… " It suddenly occurred to him that he didn't know what kind of relationship Ex had with the hermits. He'd heard snippets of misgivings at the meeting, but truth be told he'd been a whole lot more focused in playing with Barnabee at that point. Although the fact that Ex was literally called "Evil Xisuma" probably said enough.

Then again he also knew about the effects of a false bad reputation. Herobrine decided to tell the full story.

"Well… I'm living with… with the Hermits now." He started. 

"With those fools? How do you manage it!?" Ex suddenly cut in. Herobrine raised an eyebrow.

"They… they're not…" he began, remembering the entire war that had sprouted from a few stray mycelium blocks. 

"Most of them aren't… uhm… it's mostly harmless foolishness?" Herobrine tried to explain, finishing his sentence with an awkward grin. Ex lifted the bowl to his face and sipped down a mouthful before lowering it again, all the while staring Herobrine deadpan in the eyes. 

"Evex it's harmless compared to what I've seen before. They… they're family now." Herobrine added, seeing that he was unconvinced. At that Ex's eyes clouded over slightly.

"Yeah family… must be nice. All I ever had was my brother." He grumbled, looking away to hide the tears that were welling in his eyes. Herobrine shrank back a bit, fearing he'd said the exact wrong thing.

"Evex I didn-"

"Not that Xisuma is bad! X is… amazing. We just… disagree at times. I’m not sure he even meant for me to exist… and when I suddenly did I well… he was stuck with me I guess.” Ex sighed.

“He must hate me… I’ve been such a derp to him over the years…” He mumbled. “Caused so much trouble. No wonder he banned me…” He buried his face into his arms and went silent.

Herobrine shuffled over and laid his arm across Ex’s shoulders. 

“Well… Xisuma actually… sent me to get you… home.” He explained. Ex’s head lifted slightly.

“He… wants me back?”

“Y…yes.” Herobrine replied, suddenly remembering everything that was said at the meeting. Specifically X’s words.

_I don't like this either, but it's the best idea I have._

Did Xisuma really want Evil X back? Or would he just use him to reinstate himself as admin and ban him again? In that moment, Herobrine decided that he’d keep Ex from being banned again no matter what. A single look at his condition would tell anyone of the terrible effects being banned had on a person. Herobrine wouldn't wish such a thing on his worst enemy.

Meanwhile, Ex had leaned into his arms, and appeared to be dozing off.

“Hey… I think that we should stay here for… maybe a night longer... until you’re stronger.” Herobrine decided. He felt bad about making Xisuma wait more, but he didn’t fancy the chances of bringing Ex all the way home through the void in his current condition, not with all the big scary monsters hanging around. Ex had mumbled something in an agreeing tone, and was now snoring quietly. Herobrine smiled, then turned his attention to the ceiling. 

Surely Xisuma wouldn’t immediately ban Ex again?


	9. Such odd developments

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things are going down. Maybe in a literal sense.

Mango watched the overlaid lines of chunks whizz past as he glided deeper into the void. He did not intend on diving straight down, since he wasn't sure that he was whitelisted in the server system or not. If he died while not whitelisted… well, there was little coming back from that. Plus there was the fact he was in the void.

He was getting dangerously close to the level where the environment started to damage a person, so he took out the bucket and held it down below him. Mango really did not expect to get anything from the void. There was nothing down here, it's why it is called "void". Sure enough, the bucket remained empty.

He quickly fired off a few rockets to get away from the harmful level, sighing and stashing the bucket away. Then he turned around to head back to the hole in the bedrock while pondering things to himself. The void substance idea was a bust, so they'd have to find some other way. Mango could envision a way to blast a creative mode player down into the void, but it would be highly situational and also take cooperation on the victim's part. The only other way would be commands, and he was pretty sure Xisuma wouldn't have any part in whatever crazy plan Doc was brewing. 

All of a sudden something slammed into Mango's side. Mango let out a bark of surprise, then realized with a jolt that the right wing of his elytra was flailing wildly in the wind.

"Oh no." 

He was falling.

"Oh no no no no-" Mango's panicked shouting was cut off by a sharp grunt of pain and a thud, followed by two more as he bounced on the lichen covered ground and slid to a stop. For a moment he did not move, but then he groaned slightly and raised his head. 

"Well, seems I was wrong… there is something under the void…" Mango mused to himself. He blinked around at his surroundings for a few seconds, then lowered his head to the ground and squeezed his eyes shut to wait for the dizziness to pass. 

Finally Mango stood, brushing the dust off of his suit and disabling the eyepiece that overlaid the chunk borders for him. Without the distracting lines in the way, he could take a better look around him. It seemed like he was standing on an outcrop of rock hanging out over the void. A quick peek over the edge told him that there was nothing below. Instead it seemed all the action was above him. The outcrop ran into a massive structure of rock hanging down from the fog above. The ground was covered here and there with some sorts of plant matter. In some places it looked like warped nylium, in others it was a dark almost black colour. All of it had patches of glowing lichen growing over it. Wait, was this stuff from the next update?

Further along, the path disappeared into a cave, one of many that seemed to dot the rock face. Ilmango set off towards the caves while taking the time to look over his condition. The elytra was broken, with the right wing almost completely snapped off. Furthermore the right back part of his jacket had a large tear in it, and he could feel a slight dampness underneath - no doubt a consequence of the fall. He sighed and took the elytra off, suddenly feeling very exposed. Something made the fur on his back stand on end, making Mango turn around to search for any danger. 

"Hello?" He asked into the darkness. There came no reply except the dripping of water. Mango edged towards the caves, not wanting to take his eyes off the void behind him for a second. Something was watching him, he could  _ feel _ it.

It was only when he was deep into the first tunnel that Mango let himself relax. He instinctively reached for his pick, only to remember that his equipment had to be left behind on scicraft. At that moment it dawned on him just how bad a situation he was in right now. He was stranded deep below bedrock in caves that he didn't even know existed, with features that weren't implemented yet and thus untested. On top of that he had no equipment other than a bucket, the now broken elytra and the rockets Doc had supplied him with. So much for a quick dip into the void and back. 

Mango drew in a deep breath, then set off into the cave system. He can get through this, he knew he could. 

\--

More and more glitches were appearing left and right, every single one meticulously marked and noted down by Xisuma. He was on a morning patrol with Fred the Void Glider, ticking off the reports that had come in overnight, when his found his path had almost instinctively taken him to the hole. He paused before reaching the site, watching Fred peck away at the grass with two other Void Gliders. The quiet squabbling and clicking between them was relaxing to listen to especially with how stressed he had been over the past few days. 

Four nearby chickens had intermingled into the small group, a sight that made Xisuma smile fondly. To see creatures that were so different to each other getting along reminded him a lot of the hermits. Despite the differences between them, sometimes physically, they all got along well. It was a shame that  _ some _ outsiders who had no business being here took offence to that.

Xisuma sighed and turned around to the hole, then froze at the scene. Doc was there, of course, but he was deep in conversation with a sharply dressed slime block. Nearby, a blond haired man wearing a bright blue hoodie was sitting under the doubletree, deeply scouring a screen which looked to have code on it. Next to him, an odd black humanoid that had a cracked black carapace stood beside him taking notes. One half of the player had cyan shining through the cracks, and the other half was glowing a bright magenta. An indeterminable black and white figure was halfway in-between the two pairs, half paying attention to Doc and the slime block's conversation whilst also jumping into the human and other eldritch abomination's chat every now and then.

"What is the meaning of this?"

All of the group froze and turned around to look at Xisuma, the ones capable of showing emotion taking on an expression of guilt.

"Hey Sizuma! I was j-"

"Doc, why on earth,  _ especially _ right now, would you sneak outsiders onto the server?" Xisuma cut him off. 

"We heard you had issues." The person in the blue hoodie said, glancing back at his screen. "Thought we'd offer help."

"I uh… appreciate the offer. But we're kind of dealing with things beyond our control here." X sighed. "Y'know, like actual gods?"

"Oh we know that." The slime block suddenly spoke. They had crouched down in front of a suddenly present Fred, cautiously tickling them under the chin. Fred clicked in satisfaction before hopping off to climb the doubletree. "We're working on it."

"You- what?" Xisuma pinched the bridge of his nose in exasperation. Why would scicraft start trying out their crazy experiments on his server of all places? Especially while he had no control over it? Last he heard, they were developing ways to collect end portal frames, what were they doing now? 

Well, Methodz had just said, "working on" the whole god problem, apparently. What did that even mean-

Xisuma suddenly vividly remembered the enraged words Doc had spat at Notch earlier. 

_ Oh no. Those were not empty threats. _

To be fair, if Xisuma was to hire anyone to kill a god, scicraft would be at the top of his list. But ignoring that…

"Guys, you can't just kill Notch!" He exclaimed. 

"Yes we can." The humanoid black and white entity confidently replied. Xisuma deflated, knowing that there was no way to stop them. He cautiously peered over the edge of the hole to confirm that yes, it had indeed grown more.

"Okay, sure, stay on the server that's currently breaking as we speak. You all realize that none of you are registered to the server right? With the glitches getting worse I don't want to imagine what could happen to you if you get caught in one! I can't whitelist you!" X turned to Doc. 

"They can't stay here. For their safety I need them to get back to their own server as soon as possible!" Doc shifted slightly.

"Slight problem with that. We're currently down one." He started.

"Huh? What do you mean? Where's the other?" Xisuma asked, his heart skipping a beat when the most obvious answer became clear to him. Please, don't be down in the-

"Ilmango went down into the void to attempt sample collection." Methodz answered, realising all of X's fears in one sentence. He instantly turned away and leapt into the hole, catching the air under his elytra as he dropped below the bedrock. Fred clicked, wondering where he went, then hopped out of the tree to follow after him. 

The four Scicrafters and one Hermit were frozen for a minute, then looked at one another, shrugged, and turned back to their tasks. The atmosphere had turned uneasy however. Doc couldn't help but wonder whether they had made a colossal mistake letting Mango go.

\--

Xisuma didn't really know what he was hoping to accomplish down in the void. He knew that if Ilmango hadn't returned by now it was very likely that he wasn’t coming back. Right now he was just following behind Fred, who had apparently taken the lead. It seemed reasonable to trust the creature that actually lived in the void. The thought that maybe said creature was capable of withstanding things he couldn’t never crossed his mind until he was diving down after Fred.

“Wait, where are you going Fred?” He called out, struggling to open his wings to slow his descent. Suddenly something rushed into view from the fog, and X only just managed to break his fall before he slammed into a platform of rock. For a moment he lay there, winded, then looked around in confusion. Why was there rock under the void?

Nearby Fred was hanging on a twisted looking patch of vines and pecking at a glowing object. Xisuma squinted over at it, puzzling it out to be some kind of fruit. No wonder Fred seemed to like apples. He got to his feet and began to wander about, examining the area around him. The rock was a dark grey in colour, and speckled here and there with pale green glowing lichen. Further off the rock disappeared under a mat of dark blue, with a matching dark blue plant growing from the middle. As X got closer, the plant rattled, glowing a deep cyan. Wait, is that a -

"A sculk sensor?" His voice made 3 more sculks glow nearby. A fourth, deeper rattle caught his attention, and he quickly made his way back to Fred.

"So this is where you're from huh?" He chuckled and pet the Void Glider fondly. It clicked slightly, then froze, it's head tendril pointed to somewhere behind Xisuma. X turned around, and his blood went cold at the sight of a huge form unsteadily trudging towards him. He held his breath as it stopped mere meters away, swaying itself from side to side as if it was listening for something, the tendrils on its head twitching. 

_ A Warden?? _

Xisuma didn't think that wardens even existed yet. He'd certainly never seen one before. Then again, he didn't know there existed land under the bedrock. Or cute void chickens.

One thing for sure though, Wardens were dangerous, and he was  _ not  _ equipped to deal with one right now. With Fred clinging tightly to his shoulder, Xisuma began to creep away from the Warden. He reached the edge of the island and looked over his shoulder into the abyss below. 

"Fred? Do you know the way back?" X asked, realising his mistake the moment he made it. The Warden let out a terrifying moan, then began charging towards him. With that, X leapt off the edge, shooting away from the danger. He rose back towards the ceiling, pulling out his communicator to try to make his way back to the hole.

At one point Fred hopped off of Xisuma's shoulder to fly ahead. Soon enough the glow of sunlight appeared ahead, and X was zooming out of the hole and landing in amongst the small gathering of Scicrafters. They all turned to look at him, with the two faces in the group looking a whole lot more worried at the fact he was alone.

"Okay so, good news, there is land down there." He started. "So Mango could have landed there. Bad news is that land also has Wardens in it. So, chances are he's either in deep trouble or already dead."

Almost as soon as those words were out of his mouth, the two not-quite-humanoids were shrugging on elytra and running to the hole. 

"Wait guys where-" Xisuma stared after the vanishing shapes, then let his shoulders drop in defeat. Trying to control Scicrafters was an impossible task. It was like herding cats, except the cats were all smarter than him and invented the locks on the gates he was trying to herd them into. Plus one of them was a squirrel, which would present further issues.

"I really hope you have an idea of what you are doing, Sky." He told the man wearing the blue hoodie. Sky gave him a thumbs up then went back to his laptop. 

"Hey Sizuma…?" Doc suddenly asked from behind him. Xisuma started, then turned around to see Doc holding the debug stick.

"Doc, what… no… how?" He stammered, staring at the glowing stick that had brought him so much trouble. Doc chuckled slightly.

"Metal arm? Can't affect me through that. I was going to ask if you are okay with me and my friends running some experiments with this thing?"

Xisuma immediately cringed at the idea. 

"I would rather you not cause any more damage to the server…" He answered, quite aware of the expectant staring being given to him by Skyrising and (presumably) Methodz. In the meantime Doc had removed his sunglasses, and Xisuma knew what was coming next.

"Doc no-"

"Come on Sizuma, please?" Doc asked. X tried his best to not get captivated by that huge dark eye. There was no resisting it's charm though… 

"Fine…" He sighed. "Just don't go breaking everything please?"

"WOOHOO!" Doc threw his arms in the air in celebration, then turned and jogged back to the other two. Both of them looked as if they were barely holding back their giggles, and as soon as Doc was back with them they erupted into laughter.

"What? What did I do?" He asked to them. 

Xisuma turned away from the scene, feeling hopelessly overwhelmed by the situation. Just a few days of not being able to oversee the server working had come down on him hard.

"Where are you Herobrine? Please tell me you're okay…"


	10. Survivin'

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Can't say the same about thrivin'

"Are you sure about this?” Herobrine asked. Ex nodded, despite how his legs were already shaking from the weight of the huge coat he was bundled into. He wobbled over to the exit of the small cave and squeezed out, with Herobrine following right behind him. 

With one last check of gear and condition, the two set off, with Ex leading the way for a short while until he got tired. Then they continued on with Herobrine carrying a smug looking Ex on his back. The two filled the silent air with their chatter as they weaved their way through the miles of caves. In that time Herobrine learnt a lot more about Ex and his bastard personality. Such a character came with built in traits such as stubbornness, which he soon learnt was most definitely one Ex possessed.

"I want down." Ex suddenly announced for the third time. Herobrine sighed and rolled his eyes, but complied despite knowing he'd be back to carrying him within a few minutes. Ex took a few wobbly steps, then turned around grinning wildly.

"I did it!"

"Yes! Good job!" Herobrine encouraged him. At that Ex began to skip ahead, singing "I diiid it, I diiid it!" over and over as he did so. 

Herobrine chuckled to himself, waiting for Ex to sit down and demand to be carried again. It was like looking after a child that was frustratingly stubborn, yet also somewhat endearing. He could definitely see Ex's somewhat immature behaviour being a pain on the server, but with his expansive life experience he could handle it.

"Took you long enough." Ex grumbled as Herobrine finally came to a stop beside him.

"Let me guess, tired?" Herobrine asked. Ex shook his head.

"Nah, bored waiting for you, slowpoke!" He cackled. Herobrine gave him a warm smile and a soft thump on the shoulder. Ex slapped him back as hard as he could, which with so little muscle wasn't very hard at all. Then he grabbed Herobrine's hand and set off again with a cheeky giggle, dragging the amused cryptid along behind him.

Herobrine suddenly froze, jerking Ex to a stop. His eyes were locked onto a huge shambling shape ahead. Ex turned to look as well, his face taking on a look of confusion.

"What is that?" He asked way too loudly. Herobrine let out an exasperated whimper as the monster shuffled around with a terrifying moan. Ex felt his blood run cold as it began to unsteadily trudge towards them.

"Herobrine? What is that?" 

"It senses us by sound Ex, shut!" Herobrine hissed, tugging on his arm to get out of the way.

Suddenly, the monster charged forward. Ex yelled in fright and scrambled off in the exact opposite direction of Herobrine.

"Wait, Evex- nononono!" Herobrine spun around and took off after him, rushing past the monster and instantly taking it's attention. It raised it's arms with a groan and brought them down on the ground, missing him by a few feet. Shards of rock flew out from the hit, spraying Herobrine with the debris. 

"Herobrine? You derp!" Ex called out, acting like a derp himself as the monster once again focused back on him. It gurgled and charged forward, making him scream and scrabble back. At the sight of this, Herobrine threw his bag aside and leapt at the monster, landing on the back of its neck and grabbing the tendrils. He pulled back, stopping the creature in its tracks, then tugged until one of the tendrils ripped away. It screamed and grasped at its head, trying to shake Herobrine off.

"EVEX! RUN!" Herobrine yelled, further disturbing the beast. Evil X did not need any further instruction; he took off running, not looking back as the monster moaned and growled behind him. 

Herobrine watched until the shape of Ex had vanished into the darkness. He felt the hands of the monster clamp around his waist, then suddenly he was forcefully tossed to the floor. He groaned and tried to turn over, but instantly the monster slammed its fist down onto his body. Herobrine cried out in pain as he felt several ribs crack. This creature was extremely strong if it was able to do so much damage at once. He barely had time to even begin recovering before it struck again. 

Wheezing from the pain, Herobrine raised his hand, flaring his fingers to send a fireball to engulf the beast. However the fire died mere inches from his hand. Then the fist came crashing down again. All he could do was curl into a tight ball to protect himself and hope the monster thought he was dead and left him alone. Surely Evil X should be long gone by now…

Once more Herobrine felt another hit to his ribs. He bit back a whimper, bracing himself for more punishment. However, the monster was trudging away from him, groaning and unsteady from the loss of a sensory organ. As it receded into the darkness, Herobrine felt himself slipping unconscious. He shook himself awake, then took the moment to look down at himself. Wounds were littering his body, many of them bleeding. His bones felt shattered, indeed many of them were. He let himself flop down, taking in a deep breath and wincing as the broken edges of his ribs grated over each other. He could barely stay awake.

"Don… fall slee… noo…" he mumbled to himself. 

The empty darkness enveloped him anyway.

\--

Ilmango's pick whacked against the iron ore, freeing it from the wall. That made around a stack and a half, which should be more than enough to last him till he got back to the surface. Stashing the ore away, he began the journey back to the haphazard shelter he'd constructed to protect him while the iron smelted. 

Patches of glow lichen passed by Mango as he walked, his eyes peeled for any more iron ore or veins of the ultra hard coal he'd found. However, it seemed he'd cleaned out the place first time, and every now and then a bout of dizziness made him pause, which wasn't helping his search any. Sure, there was redstone, gold and copper for some reason, but the former of the two couldn't be mined with a stone pick, and why would he even need the latter?

Mango ducked inside the shelter and blocked off the entrance, then sat on the floor with a sigh and checked the furnaces. A few ingots had been formed, but the process was taking a painfully long time. Overall though, Mango thought he was doing pretty alright for himself. The world was an odd and unfamiliar one, but so far he had constructed himself a set of tools and a place to stay safe. 

Apparently warped fungi existed down in this dimension, he was assuming it was a new dimension anyway. That allowed him to get a crafting table, a pick to get stone, and then on to mine some iron. He'd also made a stone sword to protect himself from the mobs, which consisted of a few zombies and skeletons. However, odd sounds had made him look over his shoulder every now and then, and he could never shake off the feeling of being hunted. 

Mango grabbed another of the hard coal crystals he'd mined and threw it into the furnace. It landed in amongst the rest of the smoldering fuel, making him huff in annoyance. For some reason fire did not burn down in these caves. He'd made torches only for them to fizzle out immediately, and now the furnace was barely smelting. Despite this, however, Mango nearly had enough iron for a pick and sword, and with those he could go mine the few diamonds he found too. However he'd run out of wood, so now he was just waiting for the iron to smelt, then he'd have to go out to get more. Hopefully there would be enough iron for some armour as well…

Mango shook himself awake once again. The constant fatigue and dizzy spells weren't helping him either. Maybe it was the warmth from the furnace, the fact he'd been at it for a while or, most worryingly, poor quality air, but at some points it felt like he could barely keep his eyes open. Sure, it would be perfectly fine in his current position to take a nap, but in case the reason was number 3, he really didn't want to risk it. 

Nonetheless, Mango found himself leaning against the furnace with his eyes closed. He forced them back open, choosing to watch the dim lights dancing on the walls instead. It was only when the shapes melded together into an unfocused blob that he let himself blink again.

The glow suddenly faded, making him grunt in annoyance.

"Really? Again?" He complained to no one in particular while grabbing a handful of the coal and throwing it into the furnace. The heat spluttered back into life, resuming the unbearably slow smelting process. With an impatient huff, Mango stuffed the rest of the coal into the furnaces and knocked the doorway blocks out to make his way outside. Marking down the coordinates of the small shelter, he stepped out into the darkness of the caverns. 

\--

Evil X scrambled into a small gap between two bedrock boulders and sank to the floor. His throat was raw from his gasps for air, a pain only enhanced by the ache of his weak overworked heart in his chest. He listened out for any whisper of a monster chasing him, but there was no sound other than his own laboured breathing. Still, he dared not venture back out. Not yet. For one he doubted he'd have the energy to do so.

Now the adrenaline of the encounter was wearing off, Ex's limbs felt like wet spaghetti. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes, regretting comparing his limbs to food since it immediately made him realise how hungry he was. And Herobrine had all the soup, but he was currently fighting the monster. 

What an awful situation. Ex lightly thudded his head against the rock in front of him, then pulled himself to his feet. He staggered out of the hiding place and almost immediately collapsed.

"Ugh."

He  _ hated _ being so weak. It made him feel vulnerable, and feeling vulnerable was the worst. The heavy coat was not helping him either, despite the warmth it gave him. Ex begrudgingly shrugged the coat off, suppressing a shiver as the cold took its place. Then he steeled himself and pushed off the ground, forcing his legs to not shake as he stood. After a moment of waiting for the dizziness to pass, he felt well enough to begin walking.

His judgment was wildly off though, as instantly his legs turned to jelly and he flopped over again.

"Bloody hell!"

Ex sighed into the dirt and resigned himself to laying there until he recovered some energy. Hopefully he would be able to do so, considering how bad a state he was still in.

All he could do now was pray for no more monsters.


End file.
